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Using Lawn Care To Teach About Compost, Recycling & Life Cycles
Summer months bring about tons of lawn care issues, but this is a great time to teach your kids some fun things while caring for your home. You can easily being Using Lawn care To Teach About Compost, Recycling & Life Cycles. One of the best ways to get your kids interested in plant life, and simple things like how recycling benefits us is to show them a real life example they can relate to. Lawn care is one thing everyone has to deal with at some point, and in this case is perfect for teaching your kids.
Gather Grass Clippings
After you mow your lawn, you can have your kids use a rake to gather up grass clippings. If you have a lawn tractor or lawn mower that gathers clippings for you, this is a time for you to empty them out into the compost bin you will create. Show the kids that there is a significant amount of clippings and how they can be used for creating healthy compost. You can do research and find books in your library that talk about the components of grass and clippings and how it will break down and provide your soil with nutrients.
Set Up a Compost Bin
A compost bin can be a simple wire cage in your yard, or a barrel you have set aside for this purpose. Add in grass clippings, shrub clippings, dead leaves from your garden, vegetable and fruit peelings and have your kids study it over the course of the summer. They can take pictures each week to track how the compost decays, changes and turns into quality soil that can be used to fertilize your vegetable garden or flower beds.
Explain How Shrubs and Grass Grows After Being Pruned
You can introduce plant life cycles to your kids by talking with them about how the cycle continues when grass and shrubs both continue to grow back even after they have been clipped. Almost all plant life will grow again after it has been pruned or trimmed. This is a great time to talk more about how plant life happens. Seeds germinate, seedlings grow, pollen is distributed for more plant life to begin when a flower blooms. Then you have the plant and fruit development and seeds falling to the ground to grow more plants. The plant life cycle is tons of fun to share with kids, especially when working in a garden.
Teach Natural Science Lessons
Work with your kids to teach them natural science lessons through things like lawn care, gardening and other common summer activities. Compost, recycling and plant life cycles are easy to share with your kids in a casual manner. Once you have piqued their interest, you can readily get more information to teach them about the things that they find exciting.
